


The Battle of Kamino

by Mengde



Series: Sith Apprentice: Darth Venge [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Sith Obi-Wan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-23 12:50:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7463931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mengde/pseuds/Mengde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Separatists have brought forth an enormous fleet to take the planet of Kamino from the Jedi Order and its clone army.  Besieged and trapped beneath the planetary shield, the Order is outnumbered and outgunned, but they are not necessarily outmatched.  One thing is certain, however: there will be blood.  People will die.  The galaxy will never be the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lines Are Drawn

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Re-Entry Official Timeline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/913029) by [flamethrower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower). 



> Welcome to part 11 (or 12, if the site is still insisting the previous story is part 11) of the Venge series! As always, credit for Venge's original creation goes to flamethrower in her epic Re-Entry series.

“Two hundred and eighty-six ships,” Venge said.  “If I didn’t know better, I would say the CIS doesn’t like us very much.”

He stood in the Tipoca City command center with Yoda, Thrawn, Padmé, and a former Republic naval captain named Pellaeon who was apparently fresh off the boat.  The holodisplay showed the huge collection of Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, Techno Union, IBC, Corporate Alliance, and other ships moving into besiegement formation.  Thousands of droid starfighters buzzed through the fleet, looking almost like static roiling through the otherwise high-fidelity image.

“Thoughts, Lord Admiral?” Yoda asked Thrawn.

“Our resources are confined to within Kamino’s planetary shield,” Thrawn said.  “We kept the fleet in reserve rather than deployed overhead to cut down on fuel consumption until we establish proper supply chains, so they have the advantage of space power for the moment. 

“We have nearly two million infantry, half a million pilots, another half-million technicians, engineers, commissioned and noncommissioned officers, gunners, bridge crew, and so forth, and three thousand elite commandos.  Naval forces docked planetside are made up of five hundred _Venator_ -class cruisers and their support vessels, which are gunships, fighters, bombers, and picket defense frigates.  There are one hundred and twenty-one Force users of various levels of capability in Tipoca City; the rest of the Order, including the other Council members, are at a minimum two days out.”  Venge was impressed – Thrawn was reciting these statistics from memory. 

“We cannot deploy our _Venators_ without opening potentially ruinous gaps in the planetary shield,” the Admiral continued.  “However, we cannot afford to cede control of Kamino’s orbital space for long.  Not only are our reinforcements now walking into a trap, but the longer we wait to give battle, the longer their own reinforcements have to arrive unmolested.  In short, they have put us in an untenable situation with no clear solution possible through standard military tactics.”

Yoda nodded.  “A plan, you have?”

Thrawn smiled tightly.  “We redefine the terms of the engagement and change our tactics accordingly.  Consider the fleet above us as you would a large series of well-defended ground targets you wish to take relatively intact.”

“Massed infantry would incur enormous casualties in that scenario,” Pellaeon mused aloud.  “You would be better off with targeted commando strikes.”

“Precisely, Captain.”

Padmé shook her head.  “Every one of those _Lucrehulks_ holds more than a quarter million battle droids, to say nothing of destroyers, tanks, and any new designs manufactured since Naboo.  And I have no idea how well-guarded the other ships are.”

“A good point, Ambassador,” Thrawn acknowledged.  “Naturally, we will need to deplete the CIS’s supply of battle droids and starfighters to give our commandos a chance to board and sabotage the ships.  Suggestions?”

“Pretend you’re taking the bait and deploying _Venators_ ,” Venge said.  “They’ll pour fighters and troop transports through the gap you open up.  We’ll have to fight them on the ground, but we’ve got those two million infantry and significant anti-air defenses in Tipoca City.  It would be a winnable fight while commandos sabotage the ships overhead.”

“They won’t merely bombard the shield openings in the hopes of annihilating everything beneath?” Pellaeon questioned.

“They know our naval forces outnumber them nearly two to one at full deployment strength,” Thrawn replied.  “They may or may not know we will have insufficient men to _crew_ all our ships for the next three months, but nevertheless, they will operate on the assumption that we do.  It will be their aim to seize control of the planet, such that even if their navy is forced to retreat, ours will be without any support or reinforcements.”  He narrowed his glowing red eyes.  “But they would quickly see through the ruse of _Venator_ deployments if none present themselves.  We must bait them with a proper lure.”  He turned to the Kaminoan Prime Minister, Lama Su, who stood in the communications section of the command center, issuing orders to the various stilt cities.  “Prime Minister.  Are we due for the storms to resume soon?”

Lama Su susurrated something in Kaminoan into the comm unit.  A reply returned a moment later.  “Two hours.”

“Excellent.”  Thrawn gestured at the holodisplay.  “This is what we shall do.”

* * *

Darth Vader stood in the observation gallery of the dreadnought _Invisible Hand,_ gazing at the planet below.  He was hungry for this battle.  He wanted to face more Jedi, to prove his and by extension the Sith’s superiority.  This was what he had been created for; it was his highest goal in life.

He could want nothing else.

“Will the Jedi hide behind their shield until they starve?” he asked no one in particular.  “Do they think rescue is coming?”

In his plush seat to Vader’s right, Darth Tyranus spoke.  “You see the returning stormfronts?  They wait for cover to disguise their deployment strategy.  They know they must fight this battle quickly, before we can muster even more of our forces and theirs arrive under our guns.”

Vader scowled.  “Let them be as clever as they like.  If they send their cruisers out to fight us, we will take the planet out from under them.  Our droids outnumber their combat-ready clones more than ten to one.”

“And we will be lucky to achieve a kill rate of better than one clone per ten droids,” Tyranus snapped.  “We had the Kaminoans make the finest army in history, and now the Jedi have stolen it from us.  This cannot be allowed to stand.”

“What of the traitor’s blackmail material?” Vader asked.  “He could make things very difficult for our Masters.”

A short, unpleasant laugh sounded from his left.  He turned to look at Ghûl, who was also staring at the planet, but without any malice or impatience visible in his expression.  His eyes, though they burned with the Dark Side, were dull, empty.

Vader found him profoundly unsettling.

“Venge will not give up his personal advantage over us unless he or Amidala are hurt or killed,” Ghûl said.  “He may be working with the Jedi, but he will not place his leverage at their disposal.  Her safety matters too much to him to give up the control he thinks he has.”

Turning back to look at Kamino, Vader watched the storms grow thicker and darker, spreading over the planet’s surface.  They were moving unnaturally fast, huge coruscating bolts of lightning visible even from orbit arcing through the clouds.  “They’ll have the cover they want in minutes,” he observed.

“Then they will make their move soon after that,” Tyranus pronounced.  “Whatever it is.”

Vader watched the planet in silence, letting every second fall like a lash against his back, stoking the fires of his rage.  It was not fair that he should be made to wait.

A full hour passed.  The three Sith continued to wait.  Until the shield went down, they could do nothing.   Grinding his teeth, Vader muttered, “If they were going to attack, they would have done so faster than this.  I think they’re going to try to wait.”

“Don’t be hasty,” Tyranus reprimanded him.  “It takes time to get even a single cruiser ready for battle, to say nothing of however many they feel they will need to break our blockade.  We may be here for some time yet.”

Ghûl laughed again, though there was no humor or pleasure in the sound.  “You’ll get your fill of Jedi blood before this day is done, Vader.  Rest assured of that.”

Vader opened his mouth to tell Ghûl what he thought of his grand pronouncement, but then he noticed something in the planetary shield, just south of the equator.  A ripple.

In two quick strides he was standing over Tyranus, stabbing at the comm panel on the man’s chair.  “Sensors!” he snarled.  “Get a fix on the planetary shield, south of the equator, west of the terminator!  Tell me what’s happening there!”

Tyranus shot him an irritated glance.  “I could have done that, Vader.”

“You were either asleep or too old to see this,” Vader sneered.

That drew a nice glower from Tyranus, but before he could say anything else, the bridge reported back.  “There’s a slight instability within the shield matrix.  It’s throwing off highly unstable ion particles which are further polarizing the storm and drawing more electric discharges to the area –”

“Which, in turn, further destabilize the shield,” Vader cut off the sensor operator.  “Of course.  How long until the shield fails completely over that area?”

“Three or four minutes.  It’s unlikely they’ll be able to reestablish it without dispersing the storm.”

“And they’ll have a hard time doing that if we’re pouring fighters and troops through the gap,” Vader said, already moving for the turbolift.  “Order the fleet to launch for that gap!” he called over his shoulder at Tyranus.  “I want us coming through the instant the shield goes down!”

“I do not recall Lord Plagueis putting you in charge of this fleet,” Tyranus growled.

Vader waved the turbolift open.  He turned and gave Tyranus his most savage grin.

“Then don’t give the order, and explain to him why you didn’t leap upon an obvious opportunity when the Force itself presented it to you.”

Tyranus shook his head.  “Very well.  Be it upon your head if this turns out to be a trap.”

Without giving a reply, Vader moved into the turbolift, ordered it to take him to the hangar.  Even if this was a trap, he welcomed it.  Anything was better than simply waiting there with those two old men.

He had a destiny to meet.

* * *

There was nothing visible through the viewport of the _Manticore_ except dark, swirling currents.

Pellaeon looked around at the bridge, _his_ bridge.  Not twelve hours ago, he had essentially been a refugee with nothing to his name, having just given up his entire life to go on a mad quest to help the Jedi Order because he thought he might be able to make a difference.  Now he was the master of a _Venator_ -class cruiser, crewed by more than ten thousand clones, capable by itself of reducing an enemy capital city to rubble.

Well.  He was _a_ master of this ship.  The other one sat in the command chair behind him.

“Status, Captain?” Thrawn asked.

“According to the Kaminoan sensor net, enemy forces are heading for the shield disruption at full speed,” Pellaeon reported, reading off of his console.  “We should have enemy fighter and troop movement overhead in three minutes.”

“Excellent.  It appears they’ve taken the bait.  Is my flagship ready?”

Pellaeon turned to face Thrawn, automatically straightening.  “The _Manticore_ is fully at your command, Admiral,” he gave the formal reply.

“Very good.  Commence countdown, Captain.  One hundred and eighty seconds.”

“Countdown commenced, Admiral.”

They stood there in silence, the clone bridge officers manning their stations, watching the Aurebesh numerals wind down toward nothing.  Pellaeon took a deep breath as the last of the seconds ticked away.

_Zero._

“This is Lord Admiral Thrawn to Task Force Alpha,” Thrawn said, pressing the transmit key on his chair’s control panel.  “Launch and fire at will.”

“Fire drives,” Pellaeon barked to the bridge crew.  “Raise shields.  Bring all weapons online.  Let’s give the enemy a show!”

* * *

Vader tore down through the atmosphere of Kamino in his prototype _Actis_ interceptor, leading the swarm of droid starfighters, troop transports, and bombers.  Thousands and thousands of vessels chased him through the storm, buffeted and battered by wind and frozen rain; dozens exploded as enormous lightning bolts pierced the clouds and fried them.  Vader let the Dark Side guide his hands, steering him safely through the conflagration.

He broke through the cloud cover into the air over the rain-lashed ocean.  There were no ships visible, either to his eyes or to his sensors.  “The air is clear!” he transmitted.  “To Tipoca City!  Full speed!”

A solid mass of droid ships poured down after him, filling the sky.  Vader exulted in the power and grandeur of the moment, the Dark Side burning bright in him.

Then he saw the surface of the ocean begin to froth.

Eight _Venator_ destroyers suddenly erupted from beneath the waves, water streaming and sparking off of their shields, their drives and weapons coming to full power.  Their laser and flak cannon opened up full force into the mass of droids, torpedo launchers spewing missiles.  Their dorsal-mounted hangars opened and vomited ARC-170 and V-Wing fighters, which fired their own missiles and lasers into the droid waves before they could react.

All in all, Vader estimated he lost nine thousand ships in the first ten seconds of the engagement.

He jinked and juked his fighter through the hail of enemy fire and let the Dark Side sing through him as he began burning ship after enemy ship from the sky.

The Battle of Kamino had begun.


	2. Hard Contact

Venge sat in the pilot’s seat of a Rothana Heavy Engineering Rapid Entry Assault Vehicle, apparently referred to by clones as a REAV.  It seemed an appropriate designation.  The craft was technically a shuttle, but it boasted ground-assault and aquatic-assault modes as well, so he could forgive the nomenclature.

Its occupants were eight Republic Commandos, RCs as they called themselves.  They were two pods of four, Delta and Prudii Squads, both trained by Vau.  Their target was the _Lucrehulk_ battleship _Capital Gains._

Delta was a riot of colors – red, orange, yellow, green – while Prudii was a mass of night-camouflaged armor.  Venge touched their Force signatures, trying to get a sense for them as individuals, putting names to metaphorical faces.  He wasn’t surprised that they chose names for themselves.  If he’d been born without one, he would have too.

“Coming over the ‘horizon,’” he announced.  He was at the head of a task force of three hundred REAVs, performing an atmosphere-skimming flight around the planet to keep their ships off of Separatist sensors for as long as possible.  They’d launched from Tipoca City and made shield egress halfway across the planet to pull off the gambit.

“Bumpy ride,” the one called Scorch said.  He was Delta’s demolitions expert, his yellow armor entirely appropriate.  “You ever flown a ship before, sir?”

Venge gave him a look.  “You ever been ejected from an airlock in low planetary orbit, Commando?”

Scorch’s pod-mate Sev laughed darkly.  “Oh, he knows what the rest of us want.  Force-user for sure.”

“Stow the chatter,” their sergeant, Boss, said.  “This is a boarding assault, not a _shabla_ social event.”

The commandos fell silent as Venge aimed their REAV at the enemy fleet, boosted the thrusters one last time, and went dark.  No sensors, shields, engines, or even life support.  They coasted on their considerable momentum, hurtling toward their targets unpowered.  Every other REAV was doing the same.  Coming in at an oblique vector toward the Separatists’ ventral facing, the plan was for the REAVs to masquerade as a simple meteor shower until the enemy detected them.

The Separatist fleet was clustered in tight formation above the shield disruption Thrawn had ordered the Kaminoans to create.  They were pouring tens of thousands of fighters and troop transports into it.  The eight _Venator_ cruisers wouldn’t be able to hold them off completely, Venge knew, but they didn’t need to.  They just needed to keep the Separatists in one spot, to ensure the REAVs didn’t have to spread out.

“Any last orders, sir?” Atin from Prudii squad asked.

“After we land the REAV as close as possible to the reactor, no one plays hero,” Venge told him.  “We stick together, we do our job, and most importantly, we give ourselves sufficient time to evac by means other than the REAV if necessary.  No telling if it’ll get shot off the hull while we’re busy.”

“Yes sir!” the eight men chorused, one voice.

“Once we’re inside,” Venge continued, “Sergeants Boss and Orar are in command.  I have no background in small-unit tactics, so I’ll be letting you take over.”

“Appreciated, sir.”  Orar, Prudii’s leader, leaned forward a bit in his seat, head cocked at the viewscreen.  Venge realized he was letting his Katarn helmet do rangefinding calculations when he said, “Time to target, seven minutes.”

They sat in tense silence, waiting for the first flash of laser fire that told them the REAVs had been detected.  The Separatist ships loomed larger and larger, a myriad of droids vomiting from their hangars into the shield gap below.  Tracyn, Prudii’s demolitions expert, broke the silence.  “All this traffic, we might actually get all the way in without being spotted.”

Naturally, that was when the nearest starship, a Commerce Guild _Recusant_ -class light destroyer, lit up with laser fire.

Venge brought the REAV’s systems back online in a flash, juking out of the way of the blasts.  He put all power to the forward shields for the moment.  Once they were inside the fleet’s defensive sphere, the enemy wouldn’t be able to shoot them down without risking friendly fire.  “Strap in if you haven’t already!” he snapped.  “We’ve been spotted!”

“Appreciate the update, sir!” Boss said, his tone not quite over the line of insubordination.

The _Capital Gains_ was in the heart of the enemy fleet, surrounded by roiling clouds of starfighters.  They were the real threat now that they were in the thick of the Separatist formation; missed shots from them wouldn’t do more than irritate a capital ship.  Venge evened the shields out and put all discretionary power to the engines.

A glancing laser hit from a vulture droid sent them spinning.  Venge ground his teeth and held onto the yoke with a death grip, ignoring the retching sound Scorch made.  If the commando was going to lose his lunch inside his helmet, that was his problem.  “Eight kilometers!” he choked out as the inertial compensators tried and failed to keep the g-forces from slamming him against his straps.  “Brace, brace, brace!”

They hit the outer perimeter of the battleship’s shields, passing through the envelope with a jolt.  Venge angled the REAV’s nose up, finally getting full control of the craft back.  He checked his instruments, aimed as best he could for the tertiary access port for the reactor in the central sphere of the battleship, and fired the emergency retro thrusters.

The REAV came to a relative halt right above the hatch.  Venge threw all power to the shields and the breaching array, settling the REAV on top of the door.  The clamps on the REAV’s belly engaged with a _shunk_ he felt through the hull rather than heard.  He hit the big red button on the control panel: BREACH.

Plasma jets roared to life beneath the REAV, burning through the durasteel-armored hull in seconds.  The eight commandos unstrapped themselves and stood, gathering around the egress hatches in the floor of the vehicle.  Venge reached out with the Force, trying to get a sense of their breach progress through the hull.  For a moment he felt a profound negative force, pushing back against him; then, it abruptly vanished, replaced with a sense of readiness.

“We’re clear!” he said.  “Everyone inside!”

Boss pulled the manual release on the egress hatches; they sprang open with a hydraulic hiss.  Beneath, they could see a ragged hole, still glowing white-hot around the edges, big enough for two men to drop through at once.  Beyond was a ship’s corridor, the far wall blackened from the tail of the plasma jets, at a right angle to the REAV’s relative “down.”

The two sergeants leapt in first, their falls suddenly changing to slides across the deckplates of the battleship when they passed through the gravitic discontinuity between the two ships.  They drew their DC-17 rifles as they fell, scanning the hallway.  “Clear!” Boss said.  “Go, go, go!”

Venge waited for the other six commandos to jump before leaping down himself, a quick touch of Force power ensuring that his cloak didn’t catch on the jagged, burning-hot edges of the hole.  He reoriented himself in midair with another Force burst, landing on the deckplates boot-first rather than sliding as the commandos had.

Seeing that they were indeed alone for the moment, Venge pulled out his commlink and thumbed it on.  “Command, this is Justicar Venge.  Squad One, breach successful.”

“Confirmed, Justicar,” Thrawn’s cool voice replied.  “Other reports are coming in now.  It appears that we have lost four REAVs, and three others have been forced to retreat due to extensive damage.”

“Two hundred ninety-three out of three hundred,” Venge said.  “Better than we could have hoped.”

“Considering our target was one hundred seventy-five, I should say so.”  Thrawn sounded darkly amused.  “You have eighty-three minutes before I estimate we take too much damage to hold any semblance of a line.  Make them count.  Thrawn out.”

“Reactor should be down this corridor, about one and a half kilometers,” Fixer announced.

“Now I know why they call it a _tertiary_ access port,” Venge growled.  “After you, gentlemen.”

Delta took point, moving quickly but carefully down the hall, weapons up.  Venge moved behind them, lightsabers drawn but not active, while Prudii covered the rear.  Faintly, he could hear the sound of clanking feet.  “They’re coming.”

“Alright, boys,” Boss said.  “You wanted the chance to slot some tinnies for real.  Here we go!”

The first line was Trade Federation B-1 battle droids, skeletal figures with poor aim and ridiculous voices.  Venge wondered idly why their programmers had thought it would be a good idea to give them some conception of pain; they cried out and made various pitiful sounds of distress as Delta mowed them down, DC-17s blazing.  Venge let the commandos do the work they had trained their entire lives for, watching blaster bolts glance off Katarn armor.  He didn’t even have to activate his sabers.

When the distinctive sound of droidekas rolling up the corridor began to echo off the walls, he Force leapt over Delta’s heads and brought his blades thrumming to life.  There was little cover to speak of, and however hardened commando armor might be, he didn’t trust it against destroyer fire.

Four of them deployed, shields buzzing to life, and began to fire.  Venge whirled his sabers into a Soresu deflection pattern, turning away the rain of deadly light, giving the commandos room to focus their fire on one of the destroyers until its shields failed.  They took all four down in rapid succession, completely silent as far as Venge could hear.  Their sense in the Force was not one of eight men working together, but two different _packs_ working in such close concert that their members were almost indistinguishable as discrete entities.

They made steady progress down the corridor, cutting down dozens of droids as they covered the kilometer to the reactor.  The reactor chamber itself was sealed behind a blast door and guarded by more B-1 droids, which barely lasted four seconds against the intrusion team.  “Scorch, door please,” Boss said.  The sound of more droids advancing down both sides of the corridor rang out.  “Quickly, if you don’t mind.”

“Well, since you _did_ say the magic word…”  Scorch pulled a shaped charge from his hip, crouched in front of the door, started priming it.  Venge casually deflected a blaster bolt away from the commando’s head, back into the droid which had fired.

“Take your time, Private,” he said.

Scorch snorted.  “The _pressure,_ sir.  I can’t remember if it was red-red-green or red-green-red!”

“Orar, want to swap demo guys?” Boss asked.  “Special limited-time offer.”

Now it was Orar’s turn to make a rude noise as he laid down covering fire in the direction of their initial approach.  “You don’t want Tracyn.  _Di’kut_ once put his armor on backwards.”

“It was to win a bet, you _hut’uun_ ,” Tracyn protested.

“CLEAR!” Scorch bellowed, ducking away from the door.  Venge took two long steps away.  A moment later, the charge detonated, sending the door flying inward in a burst of noise and flame.  A ringing noise sounded in his left ear; he mentally cursed himself for not quick-holstering a lightsaber and plugging it.  As much as he hated to consider it, perhaps Dooku had a point.  Maybe he should invest some time and focus on retraining himself with a one-handed form.

Scorch and Sev moved into the enormous reactor chamber, quickly and efficiently dealing with the Neimoidian crewmen cowering inside – one in the head and one in the heart.  Venge nodded approvingly, continuing to bat droid fire away as the rest of the commandos filed through the blasted door.  “What are we dealing with?” he called over his shoulder, taking a second to assess the room.  The nine of them were standing on a relatively small crew platform, suspended over a vast, empty space.  In the center, literal kilometers away, was the toroid shape of the reactor core.

“Standard hypermatter reactor,” Scorch replied, looking at the massive, pulsing heart of the ship.  “Either we shift it all the way out there to stick a charge on it –”

“Or we get creative,” Fixer said, starting to navigate his way through the menu of the primary control panel.  He shoved the dead Neimoidian in the seat to the floor.  “Pardon me, _aruetii_.”

Venge holstered both his lightsabers as he heard droidekas approaching.  He drew deeply on the Dark Side and unleashed a crackling storm of Sith lightning through the doorway, frying the destroyers even as they began to uncurl into combat form.

“Beautiful pyrotechnics, sir,” Atin said.  “How many times can you do that?”

“More times than you,” Venge replied, taking a deep breath.  “Fixer?”

“The thing about hypermatter reactors,” Fixer mused, speaking as he sliced the console, “is that if you set up the right frequency resonance between the intermix chambers, you get a beautiful feedback loop that makes just the nicest explosion.  _Kandosii._ ”

“In Basic?”

“In Basic,” the commando replied, “we have eighteen minutes to leave.”

Venge drew his sabers again.  “Excellent.  Is the REAV still intact?”

Boss put a hand to his helmet, checking.  “Yes and no.  Yes, we could still leave on it.  No, it’s been hulled.  We’re proof against vacuum for an hour, but you –”

“Right.  So, you eight take the REAV and I’ll find another way off the ship.”

“No can do, sir,” Orar said.  “Losing a commanding officer is dereliction of duty.  Vau would beat all of us senseless.  We all leave together.”

“Fine.  Suggestions?”

Fixer shrugged.  “Schematics say we’re five klicks from a hangar that should have a shuttle or two for Sep VIPs and other wets.”

“Five klicks, eighteen minutes, full armor,” Boss grumbled.  “This is boot all over again.”

“Buck up, Boss,” Sev said.  “Boot wasn’t full of clankers trying to slot us.”

Venge looked at them.  “Gentlemen.  Running for the hangar now.  Witty banter later.”

They ran.


	3. Clones, Men, Soldiers

Anakin looked, dismayed, at his men.

He had been given command of a company, Torrent, in the 501st Legion, when Siri had volunteered to lead one of the commando raids against the enemy fleet.  Yoda had put them in charge of defending Tipoca City’s shield projector.

He wasn’t dismayed _by_ the clones.  They were, to a man, focused, dedicated, and clearheaded.  They had secured the projector facility and taken up defensive positions in the hangar – the only real entry point for the building that the droids could use without bringing in heavy artillery for breaching – in record time, with practically no input from him.

No, he was dismayed because they were _his_ men.  He was no military commander.  He’d never studied infantry warfare.  They were looking to him for orders.  If he gave the wrong ones, they would die.  It would be his fault.

He swallowed hard.

“Is there a problem, Commander Skywalker?”

Anakin glanced over at the man next to him in the makeshift bunker of cargo crates and hastily welded plasteel.  The armor was white and blue, with distinctive _jaig_ eyes on the helmet; beneath that, Anakin knew, he was clean-shaven, blonde, and intense.

“Just thinking about responsibility, Captain.”  Strictly speaking, while Yoda had told Anakin he was in charge of Torrent Company, Rex outranked him.  He wasn’t about to assume familiarity and make a bad impression.

Captain Rex nodded.  “First time in charge of a company, Commander?”

“Just Anakin, please, Captain,” he said, deciding to extend the metaphorical hand first.  “And yes.  I’ve never been in charge of _anything._   I’m afraid I’m not cut out for it.”

“Can’t say as I’ll ever be able to drop your rank, but you _can_ call me Rex.”  He checked the charge level on his twin blasters for the eighth time, the motion registering in the Force as absentminded.  “I understand your trepidation, sir.  I lost three brothers over the course of our training.  One of them was because of a bad call I made.”  Anakin felt his pain shiver through the Force.

“I’m sorry… Rex,” Anakin said, slowly.  “I didn’t know there was live-fire training.”  The idea seemed horrible to him, doubly so when he remembered the man crouched next to him, awaiting battle and potential death, was ten standard years old.

“Necessary for learning our trade, sir,” Rex said.  “Can’t know how level-headed you’ll stay when the bolts start flying, otherwise.”

This was probably an insensitive question, but he was intensely curious.  “How did you make Captain?  There haven’t been any battles or even deployments for determining advancement.”

Rex tilted his head slightly.  “An army with no officers is a sword without a hilt.  I was engineered to be one, of some rank or other.  They evaluated my training records and made me Captain.”  Anakin couldn’t see the man’s face tighten, but his signature in the Force suggested it.  “Based on that call I made, actually.  Someone needed to do _something,_ and I stepped up.  Didn’t matter that it didn’t work out.  Hindsight’s irrelevant.  An officer is a person who’s willing to make the call and accept the consequences, including dead soldiers.”

Swallowing, Anakin asked, “Even if that person has no idea what they’re kriffing doing?”

That made Rex chuckle – a deep, almost growling sound.  “Even so, sir.”

Anakin’s bead commlink buzzed to life.  “The first wave to break our line is incoming,” Thrawn announced.  “All troops, prepare to defend Tipoca City.”

Perhaps it was nothing more than simple discomfort with Thrawn’s unsettling appearance, but Anakin didn’t like him.  He found the Chiss Admiral unnerving.  He’d met him once, briefly, and Thrawn’s gaze had made Anakin feel as though he were being deep-scanned – or perhaps dissected.

“Listen up, men!” Rex said, his external speaker still on so Anakin could hear.  “We’ve been trained for this day.  We were _born_ for this day.  And, at the last, we _volunteered_ for this day!  You have your orders.  You have your instincts.  You have your brothers.  With all this, are the history books going to say, ‘On this day, the tinnies and the clankers smashed Kamino flat?’”

The entire hangar boomed with a single, echoing response, hundreds of men in perfect unison.  “SIR!  NO SIR!”

“Damn right they won’t,” Rex said, and Anakin could hear the pride in his voice.  As the first of the landing craft appeared on the horizon, he continued, “Gentlemen!

“Let’s go to work.”

* * *

Vader spun his fighter through a corkscrewing loop, bringing himself up and around onto the tail of the ARC-170 that had been attempting to shoot him down.  He stitched the craft’s tail with laser fire, watched as the engines flared and smoked.  He squeezed the trigger again, and his enemy died in a ball of flame.

“Lord Vader!” a voice came over his comm circuit.  It was the Neimoidian slime who led the Trade Federation faction of the CIS, Nute Gunray.  “Our droids are encountering extreme resistance in Tipoca City!  Please, you must go and lead the ground assault!”

“If I break the enemy resistance here, we will be able to deploy enough droids to overwhelm them,” he growled back.

Tyranus cut into the feed.  “Vader, you are in a space superiority fighter with no missiles.  You are not going to ‘break their resistance’ this way.  The issue is the enemy’s cruisers, not their fighters.”

“Fine,” Vader snapped.  “Can you identify which cruiser has the enemy commander aboard?  The one who is still directing the defense?  If I board that ship and kill him…”

“And if the enemy commander is Yoda?” Gunray asked.

Vader heard a contemptuous snort, which he assumed was Tyranus.  A moment later, the Sith Lord spoke, confirming it.  “Yoda is not a military strategist or tactician.  He has clearly recruited someone of great skill.  Stand by, Vader.”

He continued to dogfight, killing three more of the clones in thirty seconds.  A stray thought flitted through his mind, the knowledge that he might well have been incubated in the same stacks as some of these men.  He dismissed it, scowling.  Lord Plagueis had created him separately.  There was nothing of kin or kind between him and these pale, Forceless creatures.

“Vader, the most comm traffic is coming from the cruiser registering as the _Manticore,_ ” Tyranus told him a minute later.  “Do try not to die in your valiant attempt to assassinate the enemy commander.  Lord Plagueis would be most displeased.”

“Do try not to die in your valiant attempt to remain comfortable in your chair,” Vader shot back.  “And what is Ghûl doing?”

“He is on his way down to help the ground assault.  Remember your place, Vader.  You may be Lord Plagueis’s pet project, but I am the Master here.”

There was a touch, just a faint whisper, at Vader’s throat.

“So you are,” he said.

_For now._

He considered and rejected several different plans for getting into the _Manticore,_ ultimately settling on one that might allow him to retain the use of his fighter for the escape attempt.  He dropped in on the tail of another ARC-170 and carefully fired a surgical shot into its engines.  The craft, crippled but not destroyed, immediately began to veer away, looking to return to the safety of a hangar.  Reaching out with the Force to the mind of the clone pilot, Vader sent a compulsion: _The_ Manticore.  _Go to the_ Manticore.

A moment later, the ship swung toward the enemy commander’s cruiser.

Vader stayed hot on its tail, holding his fire.  As the _Manticore_ ’s dorsal hangar opened, just far enough to admit the ARC-170, Vader stood his _Actis_ on its wing and rocketed through.  Drawing the Force around himself and his ship like a shroud, he braked the fighter, fired its repulsors, and set it down in a corner of the huge bay.

None took notice of him or the _Actis._   His shroud held.

Leaping from the cockpit, saberspear in hand, Vader crept swiftly and silently to the turbolift.  He moved across the surface of the clones’ attention like a shadow over water, the Dark Side concealing him.  If any of them noticed the _Actis_ now that he was gone, it was unlikely they would have the presence of mind to destroy or move it, and he could deal with any guards they posted on it.

He instructed the turbolift to take him to the bridge.

It was quite a long wait for it to arrive; the _Venator_ cruiser was massive, even longer than the _Invisible Hand._   Vader used the time to stoke his anger, fueling the fires of his rage to new heights.  Thanks to this new commander Yoda had found, he had lost hundreds of thousands of droids without any clear gain.  Lord Plagueis would be displeased.  His Master’s approval was Vader’s entire world; his disapproval was more than he could bear.

He would bring this battle to a swift and decisive conclusion.

The turbolift doors opened.  Vader stepped onto the bridge, igniting his saberspear, letting his shroud drop.

The enemy commander turned in his chair to face Vader.  The rest of the bridge crew swung around to face him with looks of consternation, surprise, and fear, but the blue-skinned alien in charge of everything showed nothing but calm curiosity.

“So you are Vader,” he said in a smooth, quiet voice.  “I expected your arrival much sooner than this.”

Vader grinned at him, whirling his saberstaff in a flourish.  “You expected me, and yet prepared no defenses?  Foolish.”

“On the contrary.  I am quite well-protected.”

The Force shrieked _threat_ at him.  Vader spun, bringing his saberspear up to parry a blow.

It didn’t come.  Maul, his own shroud falling away, merely stepped out of the ready room of the bridge, saberstaff igniting.  Behind him stood a little Togruta female, an emerald lightsaber blazing in her hands.

“Now,” the Zabrak said, baring his teeth.  “Defend yourself.  Or die where you stand.”

He charged, and Vader leapt to meet him.


	4. Camaraderie, and a Cluster of Commandos

Super Battle Droid C-19012 had a mission.

It was the same mission as the rest of the Super Battle Droids in Droid Lander XH1832, which was good.  C-19012 had never been programmed to take individual initiative.  Better that it be doing the same thing as its fellows.

Their mission was to set down on Tipoca City Landing Pad 193, disembark, and proceed to the clone maturation chamber while killing everything in their way.  Once they arrived in the maturation chamber, they were to destroy it.

To the limited degree it was capable of such a thing, C-19012 anticipated the assignment.

Droid Lander XH1832 landed.  The first of its massive racks extruded.  C-19012 received the go signal.  It unfolded its limbs, stood, scanned the area.

Then it abruptly ceased all functionality as a high-performance, armor-piercing Verpine projectile round penetrated its armor, impacted its first, fourth, and seventh processors, tore through its primary drive motivator, and exited via its hydraulic system.

* * *

On the roof of the clone maturation chamber, Kal Skirata sucked air between his teeth in an appreciative noise.  “Beautiful shot, Ambassador.”

Padmé Amidala lay prone next to him, sighting on the droids with one of his Verpine sniper rifles.  She flashed him a smile.  “Thank you.  And Padmé will be fine.”

She squeezed off two more shots, felling an SBD with each.  Skirata quietly reevaluated the Naboo woman.  He’d pegged her as driven, passionate, and principled from her Senate speeches.  Now he added _dangerous_ and _a natural with a Verp._   She was very _Mandokarla._

He began firing his own Verp, shredding SBDs with every pull of the trigger.  They received little return fire; every other member of the _Cuy’val Dar_ was below, in a fortified defensive position to block the only external access point to the maturation chamber.  They were also opening up on the droids as they landed, with blasters and missiles and projectile rounds of their own, and were quite the distraction.  Even from up here, it was easy to pick out the stream of bolts from Padmé’s aide, Dormé, who wielded a cip-quad repeating blaster so enormous it made Skirata’s muscles ache with the _sight_ of it.

_Mandokarla,_ both of them.  If ever they needed a new clan, a new life, Skirata would adopt them in a heartbeat.

His sons, the Null ARCs, were spread throughout the city, commanding companies, reinforcing hard points.  He spared a thought for their safety, but he didn’t fret or worry.  They were _Mando’ade,_ warriors all; they would be fine.  This was their element.

Skirata poured clip after clip into the droids.  Beside him, Padmé did the same.  The tinnies kept coming, rushing out of the sky in waves, all settling on this one landing pad.  Militarily, it was a suicidal maneuver, but droids didn’t care.  The defenders would literally run out of ammunition before the fleet above ran out of droids.  The huge pile of spare Verpine clips Skirata and Padmé had hauled up here was already close to gone.

Then everything went straight to Hell.  A heavy Scythe bomber, somehow untouched by any clone fighter or triple-A defenses, roared down from the storm.  Skirata and Padmé both saw it coming.  Without a word, they stood, grabbed a spare clip each, and leapt off the roof.

Naturally, they had secured themselves to the building with rappelling lines while setting up their sniper nest.  The lines caught and slowed their descent to the defensive emplacement below, two seconds before the Scythe blew half the roof off the building.

“ _Shab!_ ” Jango bellowed over their comm circuit.  “Walon, Mij, stay here with Alpha and Beta squads and hold the line!  Everyone else inside!  We’re going to have _aruetiise_ coming through that hole!”

Skirata sprinted inside as fast as his bad ankle allowed, Padmé running effortlessly beside him.  “You should get that fixed,” she said, motioning at his limp.

“I should,” he replied shortly, leaving it at that.  Probably sensing he would rather not say more, Padmé left it too.  _A real diplomat._

Rain fell through the enormous hole in the maturation chamber’s roof.  The space was kilometers across, with little cover that wasn’t cloning equipment or other electronics.  Skirata could already see the troop transports incoming.

“Now we earn our keep,” he muttered.

“If you want to withdraw, I’ll keep your rifle,” Padmé told him playfully.

He snorted.  “Run, from tinnies?  I might just die of shame.  My sons would certainly never let me live it down.”

“That’s what I thought.”  Padmé hefted the Verp.  “I’m proud to fight alongside Mandalorians, Sergeant.”

“ _Kal,_ ” he said.  “If you’re _Padmé,_ then I’m _Kal._ ”

“Then if we’re on a first-name basis, that means we’re friends.  Right?”

“Of course.”

“Friends have friendly competitions.  Right?”

Skirata narrowed his eyes, then remembered she couldn’t see the expression beneath his _buy’ce._   “Where are you going with this?” he asked.

Padmé smiled mischievously at him.  “Let’s see who can bag more droids in here.”

Kal returned the smile, though she couldn’t see it.  “You lose your score if you get killed, right?”

“Of course.  No senseless self-sacrifice allowed.”

“I’m game, then.”  He took cover and leveled his weapon at the first landing party.  “Let’s hunt, _Pad’ika.  Oya!_ ”

* * *

“They take the idea of a single-man shuttle very seriously on Neimoidia,” Scorch said.

Venge, seated at the controls of the aforementioned shuttle – the only one that had been left in the hangar – took a moment to agree heartily.  The eight commandos were literally crammed into the cockpit behind him, a solid wall of hardened plastoid.  They very nearly hadn’t fit.

“So,” Boss said.  “One Trade Federation battleship sabotaged.  The true meaning of _squad cohesion_ reflected upon.  What next?”

“First, out to a safe distance from the _Capital Gains,_ ” Venge replied.  “A hypermatter explosion is rather like a nuclear one, if I recall my physics.”

Tracyn snorted.  “If by ‘rather like’ you mean ‘about eight times more powerful than a detonation of a similar amount of fissionable material,’ then yes.  Absolutely correct, sir.”

They had just gotten to a comfortable five-hundred-kilometer distance and swung around to bring the _Capital Gains_ back into view when it happened.  The central sphere cracked like an egg, pure white light pouring out of the seams.  A moment later it shattered outward, huge fragments borne on a destructive wave of blinding, radiant energy.  The outer ring disintegrated, detritus pouring in all directions.  Between the force of the explosion and the sudden, lethally-accelerated debris field, everything smaller than a capital ship within two hundred kilometers was instantly vaporized or pulverized.  The capitals within the blast radius rippled with shielding radiation, their deflectors desperately staving off the assault.

Both Scorch and Tracyn whooped.  Sev gave a satisfied grunt.  “One down,” he growled.  “Two hundred eighty-five to go.”

Venge activated his commlink.  “Command, this is Justicar Venge.  Squad One, mission complete, extraction successful.”

“Very good,” Thrawn’s cool voice returned.  Venge frowned; he could hear the distinctive hum and crash of dueling lightsabers behind the Chiss’s voice.  “Stand by for a new assignment.  We have confirmations and updates coming in from other squads now.”

“Lord Admiral, is there a lightsaber duel on your bridge?” Venge asked.

“The situation is well in hand.  Stand by.”

Venge glanced incredulously over his shoulder at the mass of commandos behind him.  Those with the mobility to do so shrugged.  “He’s a real cool fish,” Orar observed.

“Probably watching that, commanding the battle, and making tea,” Fixer said.

A moment later, Thrawn got back on the comm.  “Squad One, your help is requested aboard the dreadnought _Invisible Hand._ Squad Seventy has been pinned down by heavy droid presence.  They have been separated from their Jedi, Knight Tachi, who moved to engage Count Dooku and draw him off.”

Venge’s heart leapt.  _Siri._   “On our way,” he said.  “Squad One Out.”  He aimed the shuttle at the _Invisible Hand_ and fired the engines.  “See if you can make contact with Squad Seventy,” he told the commandos.  “Situation, location, and so on.”

“Already on it,” Mirshe’se, Prudii Squad’s slicer expert, said.  “Wait one.”

More Separatist ships began to explode, lose power, or move to ram other ships.  Chaos was breaking out.  Eyeballing the sensors, Venge estimated perhaps twenty percent of the squads had been successful as quickly as his.  The damage would only continue to mount.

“Squad Seventy is pinned in the power regulation chamber of the secondary reactor,” Mirshe’se reported.  “Near the rear of the ship.  They have one casualty, wounded but not fatally.”

Venge hailed the dreadnought.  “ _Invisible Hand,_ this is shuttle AA-23, late of _Capital Gains._ I have wounded VIPs on board.  Requesting permission for an emergency landing.”

“Shuttle AA-23, be advised we have hostiles aboard.”

“ _Invisible Hand,_ practically _every_ ship has hostiles aboard and you’re the closest bay to us.  Some of these people need immediate treatment.”

“Roger.  Permission granted; bay nineteen will have a medical team waiting to receive you.  Over.”

Venge killed the comm.  “Alright.  The eight of you are going to reinforce Squad Seventy and try to take or destroy the ship.  I’m going to help Siri.  You do _not_ wait for us when it comes to accomplishing your mission.  Understood?”

“Sir!  Yes, sir!” they replied.

“We’ll try to warn you when things go _osik’la_ ,” Boss told him.

“Appreciated,” Venge said.  “We’re going in.”

They swept toward the _Invisible Hand._


	5. The Dark Chosen One

When they hadn’t been interviewing volunteers to the Order’s cause, or sleeping, Ahsoka had been training with Maul.  It had only been a few days and she’d already learned so much.  Maul was an exacting, uncompromising teacher, and she had the bruises to prove it: on her palms, from so much lightsaber combat; on her arms, from quarterstaff practice; and one in an embarrassing location, from falling during a free-running lesson across the roofs of Tipoca City.

But it was only now that she had a true conception of how good Maul actually was.

From her position at the Lord Admiral’s side, serving as his last line of defense, Ahsoka watched her Master duel Vader up and down the length of the bridge.  Maul’s form was flawless, his speed incredible.  The saberstaff seemed to be a glowing field of energy surrounding him, rather than two discrete beams of light.  Only the fact that the crew operated out of pits rather than on the walkway level kept them from being in the way of the fight.

Against Vader’s saberspear, he used what Ahsoka tentatively identified as a Tràkata variant: he would unleash a blistering assault, and without warning or any detectable pause he would suddenly deactivate one of the blades and execute the rest of the series as a single-bladed form.  Then he would launch more attacks which blended from single- to dual-blade.  Sometimes the sequences would go from dual to single and back half a dozen times in the span of seconds.

And yet, Vader kept up with it.  His weapon was less versatile than Maul’s, its length somewhat handicapped by the cramped space, but he fought back with ferocious skill and tenacity.  Ahsoka could feel his rage like a searing wind on her skin, the Dark Side pulsing out of him in vast, awful waves.  It was like watching two hurricanes war against one another.

Ahsoka felt the shift in her Master’s Force signature as he tapped into his own anger as well as Vader’s, setting up the energy loop to sustain his Vaapad form.  The Zabrak unleashed his full power, becoming a scything blur of blades relentlessly battering at Vader, forcing him back.  Ahsoka watched the Sith take one step away from Maul toward the far bridge wall, where he would be cornered.  She realized a moment later, however, that he was not retreating.  He was merely giving himself room.

Vader’s Force push annihilated Maul’s form, lifting him off his feet to slam him into a wall panel.  The impact shattered it, sending glass, sparks, and circuitry flying everywhere.  Maul landed on his feet, raising a Force shield, but Vader’s follow-up strike was overwhelming, piercing the shield to crush Maul back into the mess of broken glass and torn wiring.

Ahsoka leapt across the bridge to land between her Master and Vader, lightsaber ready.  She had to buy him time to recover, to get his defenses back up.  Vaapad left its users vulnerable to Force attacks, and Vader had seized on that opening with the full strength of a Dark Chosen One.

Vader came at her with a series of arrhythmic jabs and thrusts at her face and chest, trying to kill her or force her back quickly so he could lay into Maul.  Ahsoka held her ground, the simple ready form her Master had taught her standing her in good stead.  She turned the saberspear aside with quick parries and slight movements of her body, refusing to give an inch.  But Vader was heavier, faster, stronger, and more skilled than her.  Ahsoka could feel his tremendous power thrumming through her arms, threatening to tear her saber from her grasp.  She could do this for perhaps another ten seconds if she was absolutely flawless.

Then Vader fell back as Maul somersaulted over her, saberstaff angling for the Sith’s head.  Her Master resumed the fight, and Vader was forced to give ground.  Yet Ahsoka could feel him holding back his full abilities, to guard against another Force attack.

The issue, she realized shortly, was that Maul at his best without Vaapad was not enough to defeat Vader in an even fight.  It was a terrifying thought, but she was a Jedi, and Jedi did not ignore the truth simply because it was frightening.  Vader was too strong and fast.  If Maul began to use Vaapad again, the Sith would unleash a Force offensive, and Ahsoka wasn’t strong enough to shield Maul from him.  For the moment, it was a stalemate, and fatigue would decide who gained the upper hand.

That, too, was a problem.  Ahsoka knew that Vader had genetic enhancements to his physical abilities, and he was biologically younger than Maul while still in the prime of his fighting years.  It was not a mystery who would win a battle of attrition.

Naturally, if Ahsoka had figured this out, she was sure Maul had too.  She wanted to try to help, but he had given her strict orders not to interfere while he was actively engaged with Vader.  She wasn’t yet skilled enough to help rather than harm.

_I have to do_ something, _though._

Ahsoka focused, reaching deep into the well of her power.  Any Force move she tried against Vader would fail; his presence in the Force was overwhelming and well-guarded.  But if she could contribute a little nudge, at exactly the right spot, she might be able to –

_There!_

As Vader whirled his saberspear in a complex and deadly defensive pattern about his body, Ahsoka spotted the one instant, not even a heartbeat, when the spear was moving entirely on its own centripetal force, neither of Vader’s hands gripping it.  She poured out her strength into a perfectly-timed Force pull.

The spear leapt from Vader’s grip.  He was incredibly fast; a split second later his own monstrous power vised about the spear, overcoming Ahsoka’s own grip.  But Maul was on him before he could pull the weapon back, so he switched tactics.  He lashed out in a sudden, irresistible pull at Maul’s own saber.  The saberstaff flew from his hands.  In perfect synchronicity, the spear and the staff flew against opposite walls of the bridge, deactivating.

Maul fell on Vader, bare-handed, firing off punches and kicks in the anti-Jedi Teräs Käsi style.  Ahsoka gaped as Vader countered, his limbs describing surprisingly graceful circles through the air as he blocked and redirected the attacks.  He drove his knee up into the Zabrak’s gut, and as Maul staggered he fired a snap kick with the same leg across his jaw.

_He’s too strong,_ Ahsoka thought, watching with horrified fascination as Vader caught Maul’s arm mid-punch, twisted, hurled him over his shoulder to smash into the deck.  Maul barely managed to roll away from the follow-up, a dropping elbow strike which dented the deckplates.

Vader threw himself back to his feet in time to catch a side kick from Maul.  He yanked on the Zabrak’s foot, pulling him into a chambered punch to his solar plexus.  The blow lifted Maul off his feet; he crashed into one of the transparisteel bridge windows, actually managing to crack it slightly.

Ahsoka landed between them again, brandishing her saber.  “Back off!” she said, trying to ignore the fact that Maul wasn’t moving on the deck behind her.  “I _will_ end you!”

That made Vader sneer.  “You are a hatchling, girl.  Put away your saber and run, and I may just let you live.”

“Never,” Ahsoka told him.  “He’s my Master.  I’ll die before I let you hurt him any more.”

Vader shrugged.  “If that is your wish.”

_I have one chance.  I have to cut him down when he makes his first move to try to disarm me.  Otherwise –_

Her frenzied mental calculation stopped dead when she felt his Force signature flare.  An irresistible, invisible hand slapped her to the deckplates and began pushing down.  He wasn’t even going to try to take her hand-to-hand.  He was just going to crush her to death.

Then the pressure suddenly vanished.  Vader jerked.  There was the smell of burnt flesh and leather and ozone in the air.  Ahsoka gasped, suddenly able to breathe again.  Her brain belatedly registered the sound of a blaster bolt.

She looked up to see Lord Admiral Thrawn, still seated, aiming a blaster pistol at Vader’s back.

The Chiss fired again.  Vader deflected the bolt into the ceiling with his bare hand, this time, but as he turned to execute the move Ahsoka could see the massive wound in the center of his back.  It was a wonder he was still standing.

She forced herself to her feet, knowing that now was the only chance she would get.  Raising her lightsaber, Ahsoka leapt and struck –

He dodged, just barely.  He hurled himself across the bridge with the Force, grabbed his saberspear, and disappeared into the turbolift.

Ahsoka turned to look down at her Master, and felt sudden dread grip her.

He wasn’t breathing.


	6. Dark Side Rising

Venge cut down the last of the medical droids waiting for them in the _Invisible Hand_ ’s hangar.  Delta and Prudii Squads fanned out, ensuring the rest of the cavernous room was clear of hostiles.

It became obvious a moment later that it was not.  Two Vulture droids, unlaunched for whatever reason, came to their “feet” in a corner of the hangar.  Venge whirled and began the none-too-easy task of deflecting starfighter-grade laser blasts while the commandos scattered.

“Anti-armor!” Boss called as they got into cover.  The eight men went into oddly synchronized flurries of motion as they attached their anti-armor add-ons to their DC-17s, converting the weapons from rifles to grenade launchers in seconds.  How many hundreds of hours had they spent practicing the intricate process, Venge wondered.

“Delta, take left, Prudii right,” Orar said.  “On my mark.”  The men popped up out of cover, took aim.  “Fire!”

There was a series of _chuffs,_ and each of the Vulture droids was consumed in a roiling ball of flame and smoke.  Pieces flew all over the hangar.

“All right,” Venge said.  “You know what to do, gentlemen.  Try to send me a warning if the ship is going to explode.  I’ll see you on the other side.”

Boss nodded.  “Good luck, sir.  May the Force be with you.”

The commandos dashed off in the direction of their imperiled brothers, and Venge closed his eyes to seek for Siri in the Force.

Immediately, her Force signature came through loud and urgent.  He got a sense of a long corridor, desperate flight, exhaustion.  She had been fighting Dooku in a running retreat for more than twenty minutes now.

Venge let the Force energize his limbs.  He moved, blindingly fast, not paying any attention to what direction he was going in.  It was a surer bet to let the Force guide him than to try to navigate an unfamiliar ship by intellect.

Not thirty seconds later, he found himself in a corridor he suspected to stretch the length of the ship’s spine.  He noted the ray-shield generators along the ceiling, resolved to avoid them.  His instincts said _left,_ so he turned that way and ran, keeping to the edge of the hallway.

He covered a fair bit of distance before his hunch paid off, but he quickly became aware of what looked like lights flashing in the distance ahead.  The lights resolved into sabers as he approached, red and purple blades clashing.

Dooku seemed much as he had when last Venge saw him, save for a lightsaber burn on his left shoulder.  It was not a deep wound, but it was more than Venge had been able to give him during their previous bout.

Even from a distance, though, Siri looked haggard.  Sweat stained her tunic, the right half of her hair had partially burned away, and she visibly swayed on her feet.  Yet she fought on, her technique flawless, her signature enmeshed so deeply in the Force she looked like a pillar of white light to Venge’s inner eye.

“Dooku!” Venge called.  “It’s over.  You can’t fight both of us at once.” 

To her credit, rather than look back over her shoulder at his approach, Siri threw herself into a backflip, landing five meters away from Dooku, before looking gratefully at him.  Venge could hear how ragged her breathing had become.  “What took you so long?” she gasped.

He shrugged fractionally.  “I couldn’t get here too quickly.  It might come off as clingy.”

“Ass.”

Dooku gave a contemptuous snort.  “Are you quite done?  Because this fight is far from over, Venge.  Your companion is close to dying on her feet from exhaustion.  I only need fight both of you for as long as it takes her heart to give out.”

There was an edge behind his words, a kind of lethal suggestion.  He was using Dun Möch, Venge realized, but not in a way he had ever been taught – to convince Siri that she was, in fact, almost dead on her feet.  Venge flared his own power out in a wave to dispel the ensorcellment Dooku was weaving.

Instantly, Siri straightened up, her breathing slowing.  Her eyes burned with a blue light.  “It’s not going to work anymore, Dooku,” she said.  “Alone, I could only resist.  Together, we can overpower your Dun Möch.”

“Unfortunate,” Dooku sighed.  “And I was looking forward to presenting your body to Lord Plagueis for resurrection and reconditioning.”

Venge felt his breath catch.  “Resurrection?”

“The true power of Lord Plagueis resides not only in the crude, material world,” came the lofty reply.  “Against death, his potency is undiminished.  That is why –” Dooku raised his lightsaber in the Makashi blade salute – “I need not hold back!”

Venge brought his own sabers to life as Dooku attacked, crimson blades blurring to meet the Sith’s charge.  Siri moved in as well, weapon ready, her stance far steadier than it had been only a minute before.

They clashed, Dooku once again bringing his formidable speed and dexterous footwork into play.  He maneuvered expertly between Venge and Siri, parrying strikes, whirling through evasive maneuvers, unleashing blasts of Sith lightning from his free hand as he fought.  He effectively prevented the two of them from being able to coordinate their attacks, displaying supreme focus and discipline despite already having been dueling for the better part of half an hour.

Venge held his Tràkata in reserve, well remembering that it had done little good on Geonosis.  Better to save his concentration and energy to keep Siri’s back guarded.  This was an exercise in survival rather than a true fight to the death; they were effectively stalemated so long as both sides maintained their current level of performance.  They merely needed to play for time so the commandos could do their work.

The moment he realized they were in deep trouble – even more so than he’d initially thought – was when Dooku began murmuring something to himself.

Venge strained his ears, trying to hear what Dooku was saying through the clash and hum of lightsabers.  He wasn’t able to decipher the words, however; they were in a language unfamiliar to him.  As Dooku murmured, Venge felt the Force around the Sith _twist,_ like a broken limb flailing spasmodically against the ground.

_Sorcery._

“Siri, we have to stop him from finishing the incantation!” he said.  “Press him!  Give him everything!”

Siri flew at Dooku, launching into a wild and powerful series of acrobatic Ataru strikes, while Venge laid on every bit of pressure he could, unleashing his Tràkata.  Dooku kept up with all of it, his lightsaber flashing about his body in movements so fast and precise they could have been performed by a machine.  His footwork never faltered.  The entire time, the words continued to pour from his mouth.

Desperate, Venge quick-holstered his left-hand lightsaber and hurled Sith lightning at Dooku, pouring all his power into a sustained stream, trying to get the man to have to stand still to block it.  For a moment, it seemed as though it were about to work; Dooku’s footwork faltered, he had to bring his saber up to block Siri’s attack while holding Venge’s lightning at bay with his free hand.  Venge leapt in, thrusting his saber forward for a killing strike.

Dooku finished the spell.

Space tore open in front of Venge, hissing black smoke pouring out of the gash in reality.  In the space of a heartbeat, the smoke solidified, coiling into a writhing, black tentacle of crackling bluish-black energy.  It reached out and wrapped itself around Venge’s saber arm at the elbow.

The flesh literally boiled away, the bone following an instant later.  Venge’s disembodied hand and saber fell to the ground at Dooku’s feet.

He screamed.

* * *

Siri saw the tentacle appear in front of Dooku and take Venge’s arm clean off.  Blood began to pour from the severed arm and Venge literally screamed, his golden eyes rolling up in his head from the pain.

She did the only thing she could think of: she stepped around Dooku, who for the moment was reeling from the effort of unleashing his spell, and cleaved the rest of Venge’s arm off with her lightsaber.  The new wound cauterized, stopping the bleeding.  Siri whirled, keeping an eye on Dooku and the tentacle, which now writhed on the deck, seeking blindly for both her and Venge.  She tried a kinetic thrust at it with the Force, to push it back into Dooku, but the move was utterly ineffective.  It didn’t even twitch.

Then Dooku fell on her again.  She Force pushed Venge out of the way, dropping into Soresu to sustain her against his renewed assault.  Venge was in no shape to be of any help right now, with only his off-hand remaining and pain wracking him.  But she knew she didn’t have the focus to both fight Dooku and watch for the tentacle, which had begun slithering, ophidian, toward her ankles.

They had to retreat.

“Venge!” she said, barely staying ahead of Dooku’s attempts to cut her down.  “Your lightning!  Can you trigger it?”  She sent an image through the Force to him, desperately hoping it would cut through the mental static he was doubtless experiencing from the incredible pain of his wound.

“Yes!” he gasped.  “Get ready!”

Siri retreated three steps, moving into the center of the corridor to get away from the tentacle.  Dooku followed, bearing down on her, bringing his Dun Möch back at full force.  “You are nothing,” he said to her, his words like heavy stones weighing on her limbs.  “You will fail and die, Jedi.  You are worthless, useless, tired, sluggish…”

“NOW!” Siri shouted as she threw herself back.

Venge struck out with his remaining hand, a single bolt of violet lightning crackling from his fingertips – right into the ray-shield generator in the ceiling above Dooku.

It blazed to life, a coruscating energy field descending to surround him.  The tentacle passed straight through the shield as though it weren’t there, but Dooku himself bellowed in rage and slashed uselessly at the restraint field with his lightsaber.

“Run!” Siri snapped, turning to Venge.  “Let’s go!  Back to the hangar!”

“Agreed,” Venge replied, stumbling into a run.  His face was bone-white, almost totally bloodless.  “Fierfek, but this smarts.”

“What _is_ that thing?” Siri demanded, glancing briefly over her shoulder at the tentacle – which, she noted, was continuing to pursue them, and was becoming both faster and larger.

“Sith Sorcery,” Venge gasped.  “A spell that materializes the Dark Side, gives it form and substance.  Dooku’s clearly been studying since our last encounter.”

Siri shuddered.  “It just… _melted_ your arm.’

“Yes, I did notice that!”  Venge cursed as he tried to fumble his commlink out of his robe with his remaining hand, then gave up and pulled it out with the Force.  “Delta, Prudii, this is Justicar Venge.  We’re extracting.  Dooku’s overwhelmed us.  Get yourselves out of there, _now._   This is not a request.”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then Orar’s voice came back.  “Roger, sir.  Are you taking the shuttle?”

“If it’s not too much trouble for you.”

“No, not too much trouble.  We’ll just have to find something even smaller to evac in.”

“Sounds like a good plan.  Have you rendezvoused with the other squads?”

“We have.  Still only the one casualty, and I’ve seen paper cuts worse than his wound.  Don’t worry about us, sir.  Just get off this ship.”

“Very well.  Best of luck to you.”  Venge returned the commlink to his robe as they skidded through the door to the hangar.  Whether through chance or the Force, the shuttle was exactly where he’d left it.

“I thought you had better taste in ships than that,” Siri said as they made for it.

“If you find it so objectionable, feel free to stay behind and fight Dooku some more,” Venge told her.

“Tempting, but then I’d never get to see you attempt to fly yourself out of here with one hand.”

“Damn your eyes, that’s actually so depressing it’s funny.”  Venge motioned for her to board first.  “I cede the pilot’s chair to you, for the aforementioned reason.”

Siri nodded, then felt a quiver in the Force which compelled her to glance over her shoulder.

The tentacle was now a solid black mass the size of a landspeeder, and was squeezing itself grotesquely through the door to the hangar.  Siri bolted into the shuttle, slamming the engines to full and the throttle forward without running a systems check or even sealing the airlock.

Venge slumped into the co-pilot’s chair, looking utterly drained.  “I closed the airlock.  You’re welcome.”

“You saw that thing!” Siri protested, banking out of the hangar.  “I wasn’t staying on the same ship as it for a moment longer than necessary.  Were you?”

There was no reply.

Siri glanced at him and then did a double-take, horrified.  Venge’s skin was clammy, he was hyperventilating, and as she brushed him with the Force she felt that his pulse was weak and thready.

He was going into shock.

* * *

Anakin cut down another Super Battle Droid, lightsaber cleaving through durasteel armor like paper.  He’d lost count of how many that made, now.  The hangar was almost ankle-deep in droid parts, and yet they still kept coming.  The clones’ fortified positions at the hangar exits had been scorched by blaster fire so many times now it was easier to see which spots had not yet been hit.

“Rex!” he called.  “How are we doing?”

“Eighteen dead, twenty-three injured,” Rex’s reply came through his bead commlink.  “We’re holding the line, Commander.  That’s about as best as can be expected when dealing with this many clankers.”  The Captain popped up from cover and shot another droid off Anakin’s back, his twin pistols lethally accurate.

Anakin whirled as another line of droids emerged from their lander.  He summoned the Force and sent them flying like leaves in a storm, smashing them against walls and droid ships.  Three more SBDs advanced on him, guns blazing, but he felled two with their own blaster fire before slicing the third one in half at the waist.

Then he felt the disturbance in the Force.

He turned, the battlefield seeming to fall away from him.  The droids, the clones, all of it went quiet, fading to black, and he stood alone in the void, facing –

“You have clearly learned much, my young Padawan.  In other circumstances, I might be proud.”

Anakin blinked and he was back in the hangar, the sounds of battle and death surrounding him.  Ghûl strode down the ramp of a shuttle which had just landed, lightsaber in his hand.

“I’m not going to hold back, Ghûl,” Anakin told him.  “I’m going to defeat you, and take you in.  And we’ll find a way to get Qui-Gon back.”

Ghûl smiled at him, but the expression did not reach his pitiless, dead eyes.

“You will try.”


	7. The Last Service

Anakin and Ghûl circled one another, gazes locked, sabers held at arm’s length.  Through the Force, Anakin felt Ghûl’s intent flare white-hot with readiness, and he braced himself for the onslaught.

It didn’t come.  Ghûl turned and bolted for the nearest hangar wall.  For a split second Anakin just stared, confused, before realizing what his Master was doing.  There was an access port in the wall, just below the ceiling, with a magnetic track for ferrying starfighters along the top of the hangar.  It was nearly nine meters up and closed, but neither fact would truly pose an obstacle to a Force user.

Ghûl jumped, sailing into the air, his lightsaber leaping from his hand to slice into the locking mechanism of the port’s door.  A burst of Force power pulled the door open far enough to let him shoot through the gap into the tunnel beyond.

Momentarily discombobulated by Ghûl’s unexpected tactic, Anakin was slow in following.  By the time he made it up after Ghûl, he was gone.

Dumbfounded, Anakin extended his senses.  The tunnel was more than a hundred meters long; even Force sprinting, Ghûl should have still been visible.  A quick scan made it apparent that Ghûl had gone up, and it was then that Anakin noticed the ladder.  Little more than a series of rungs protruding from the wall, it led up to a hatch which was conspicuously ajar.

He scrambled up the ladder, blasting open the hatch with the Force to ward off any surprise attacks as he climbed through.  None came.  Anakin found himself in a dimly-lit maze of catwalks, piping, and maintenance panels.  He realized that he was in the climate- and hydraulic-control area above the hangar, tucked between the room below and the curve of the roof.  This place hummed and hissed with the power and gases being pumped and regulated through it.

“This is a much more fitting battleground than a crowded hangar,” Ghûl’s voice floated out of the gloom.  “Private.  Secluded.”

Anakin raised his saber before him like a beacon.  The blue light failed to penetrate far into the dimness, blocked by the myriad pipes and by clouds of hissing steam.  “Are you going to fight?” he called.  “Or are you just going to try to talk me to death?”

“I am going to do what I was made to do,” Ghûl replied.  “I am going to cause you pain.”

Boots thudded on the catwalk behind him.  Anakin spun, lightsaber ready, and was nearly blinded as the emerald blade of Ghûl’s weapon blazed to life in front of him.  He deflected three attacks, ducked a fourth, but caught a swift kick to his ribs.  He spun with the kick, diminishing its impact –

When he completed his turn, Ghûl was gone.

Sweat trickled down his neck.  He strained his ears, trying to detect the sounds of movement, but could hear only his own thudding heartbeat, the steady hum of his saber, the hiss of steam, the rattling of his breath.

“I trained you well,” Ghûl observed.  “Even now, you are controlling your fear.  But Yoda once told you there is much of it in you, and so there is.  You fear losing those you love.  You fear failing to live up to your own expectations.”

A hiss, right above Anakin.  “You fear _me._ ”

Anakin rolled out of the way as Ghûl slammed down to the catwalk, nearly flattening him.  Before he could come fully back to his feet, however, Ghûl was on him, hammering at him over and over with brutal downward strokes.  Desperation seized him.  Without conscious thought, Anakin unleashed his full power in the Force, blasting Ghûl away into the darkness.  Even as he catapulted away, Ghûl had the presence of mind to deactivate his saber.

There was no thud or crash for Anakin to hear as he got to his feet.

“Stand and fight!” he shouted.  “Master Qui-Gon never would have done all this sneaking around!”

“Qui-Gon is dead.”  Ghûl’s voice echoed unnaturally through the space, further confusing Anakin’s notion of where the older man might be.  “You are not fighting him, you are fighting _me._   And you will need the full power of the Dark Side to stand a chance.”

“Lies!” Anakin snapped, furiously scanning for Ghûl’s Force signature and coming up empty.  “I’ll defeat you without it.  The Dark Side isn’t stronger.”

“Oh?  Did Master Yoda tell you that?”

“You _know_ he did.”

Ghûl’s laughter resonated through the maze of interconnected and crisscrossing catwalks.  “The same Master Yoda who lauds Venge, makes him ‘Justicar,’ and leaves you a lowly Padawan?”

Anakin froze.  “How –”

“It is all there in your mind.  Your thoughts betray you, my young apprentice.”  There was a low hiss, like air being sucked through teeth.  “Yes.  He showed you your dark power, tempted you toward ruin, and is _rewarded_ for it.  It is not fair, is it?”

Anakin tightened his grip on his saber.  “Fairness hasn’t got anything to do with it.”

“Indeed not.  He wallows in the Dark Side and receives _everything._ His own title.  Respect.  Renown.”  An image suddenly blossomed in Anakin’s mind: his Master’s mouth, twisted into a mocking smile.  “Padmé’s love.”

Anger surged through him.  “That doesn’t matter!  I’ve moved on!  You – Qui-Gon – showed me how.”

“Oh, yes,” Ghûl simpered.  “Moved on to Dormé.  She is _very_ present in your thoughts.  You care for her a great deal.  There is much fear for her that clouds your mind.”

Anakin could feel Ghûl’s intent leaking into the Force like a choking, poisonous cloud.  “You leave her out of this!”

“After I kill you,” Ghûl said, ignoring him, “I will find her.  I will take her back to Geonosis.  She will be interrogated.  Tortured.  It is doubtful she knows anything useful, but one can never be too through.

“And afterward, when she is of no more use, I will send Vader to her, disguised as you.  He will ‘rescue’ her, spirit her away.  I’m sure she will be _very_ grateful and relieved by your ‘survival.’”  Anakin ground his teeth, anger coursing white-hot in his blood, but Ghûl wasn’t finished.

“When it is all done,” he continued, “as they lie there, limbs entangled – ‘you’ will tell her that you never loved her.  That it was always Padmé.  That she was merely convenient.

“And then ‘you’ will strangle her to death.”

Something cracked open in Anakin’s soul.  Darkness boiled up into his mind, turning his vision red and obliterating conscious thought.  He had to release it or it would burn him from the inside out, consume him utterly.

So he _released_ it.

The Force shockwave was not just kinetic power.  It was also light and heat and sound.  A bestial howl straight out of the time before language split the air, while a perfect, blindingly-white sphere exploded out from Anakin.  Catwalks warped and shattered.  Pipes burst, gases spontaneously igniting, liquids vaporizing.  Shrapnel sprayed in every direction.

When the light died, the room was a massive, smoking ruin, and Ghûl was no longer trying to hide.

Anakin hurled himself at his foe, the Force surging like a huge and terrible tsunami within him.  He could _feel_ the Dark Side burning in his eyes like hot coals, and he didn’t care.  All he wanted was to destroy this monster, this _creature,_ for daring to threaten Dormé.

Standing atop a shifting pile of metal and plastic debris, Ghûl met Anakin’s attack with a web of Sith lightning hissing from his fingers.  But Anakin’s fury was so focused, so keenly honed, that a single thought from him sent the crackling forks of energy shying away to either side of him.  The electric storm parted like a sea as he cut through it, the Force forming a shimmering red barrier before him.

He struck with an overhand attack.  When he met Ghûl’s block, the might of Anakin’s unfettered rage roared down through the Sith’s body into the pile of detritus beneath his feet.  Deadly shards exploded out in every direction.  The two of them dropped together as the pile disintegrated, landing on the floor below.

Anakin kept the pressure on, hammering at Ghûl from every angle, abandoning any semblance of tactics or style in favor of raw, animal power.  The Dark Side sang through his blood, giving speed and strength and lethal accuracy to his strikes.  Every swing was a death sentence.

Ghûl fell back before the onslaught, turning aside Anakin’s assault only by dint of superior skill.  He leapt to the one surviving catwalk, high over their heads, and from there through a roof access hatch he blew open with the Force.  Another kinetic push dislodged the catwalk from its buckling supports, sending it hurtling down toward Anakin.

More than once, Yoda had told him that _size matters not._   Only now did he grasp how true that was.  Anakin swept aside the plummeting tons of metal with a single gesture, smashing the catwalk to unrecognizable ruin against the far wall.  Then he leapt a full twenty meters, from the floor through the ceiling, riding an explosive wave of Force power which tore the hatch right out of its mountings in his wake.  Rain immediately struck his face, soaking his robe.

He didn’t care.  Ghûl stood on the roof below him, looking up.  Anakin drew on the Force to redirect his momentum, sending him rocketing down toward Ghûl like a round fired from an artillery cannon.  His blade struck Ghûl’s.  The shockwave from the impact flashed out, a sphere of force visible through the raindrops swept up along its edges.  It hurled Ghûl away to slide along the slick surface of the roof.  For his part, Anakin landed heavily on his feet.

The remains of the hatch crashed down behind him.

Coughing, laughing, Ghûl staggered to his feet.  “The raw potential!  Lord Plagueis –”

He gagged and stopped in midsentence as Anakin struck out with the Force, lashing it around his throat like a constricting whip made of dark energy.  Anakin gave the whip a jerk and Ghûl fell to his knees, hands clutching at his throat.  His Force power tried again and again to mount a defense against the deadly move, failing every time.

“What were you going to do to Dormé once you killed me?” Anakin hissed, yanking on the whip with his mind.  Ghûl flew forward, knees sliding across the roof, coming to a stop only meters away.  “Tell me again what you were going to do to her!  TELL ME!”  He loosened the grip around Ghûl’s throat.

The Sith sucked the air, coughing again.  “Why?” he asked, giving Anakin a dead-eyed smile.

“So when you tell me,” Anakin growled, “I can kill you.  So I can crush you into a smear on the roof and watch the rain wash you into the ocean.  Tell me what you’re going to do once you’ve killed me, Ghûl.  Say the words.  SAY IT!”

“I will torture her,” Ghûl said.  “I will tear apart everything she is.  And then I will use Vader to raise her hopes up, one last time, before mercilessly crushing them and killing her in that moment of darkest despair.  And I will make her think you are responsible.”

Anakin roared and stabbed his saber through Ghûl’s chest.

It took him a moment to realize that his saber was not actually activated.  He stared down at the weapon, confused.

“You let your guard down.  I was able to misalign the focusing crystal and deactivate your blade.”

Anakin moved his gaze from the hilt to Ghûl – _no._

He found himself looking, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, at Qui-Gon Jinn.

There was no mistake.  His eyes were their normal blue, no longer burning with the gold of the Dark Side.  His easy smile was genuine, his entire face crinkling with the familiar lines of it.  His lightsaber was also deactivated, though it was still in his hand.

“Master?” Anakin breathed.

Qui-Gon nodded.  “It’s me, Anakin.”

Too dumbfounded to speak, Anakin sank to his knees, something between a laugh and a sob working its way out of his throat.  He reached out and put his hands on Qui-Gon’s shoulders, trying to make sure this was real.  “How?  What happened to Ghûl?  Is he gone?”

Qui-Gon shook his head.  “He will never be gone, Anakin.  Plagueis –”  He shuddered, visibly bracing himself.  “He would kill me, make alterations to the structures of my brain, and then resurrect me to view the results.  Rather like disabling the higher cognitive functions of a droid so you can tamper with its personality matrix.  Every time I came back, I could feel more of myself being eclipsed by a darkness, a cancer.”  Anakin felt his gut twist, but forced himself to remain silent.  “When I came back the last time, and it smiled with my mouth, moved my limbs against my will, I knew it was over.  I hid this piece of myself away, deep within my mind, to wait for a critical moment.”

Anakin rubbed at his eyes, rainwater streaming down his face.  “I – this was the critical moment?”

“Venge might say I should have waited until Plagueis let his guard down and then assassinated him,” Qui-Gon said, eyes wrinkling in another smile.  “But you are the most important person in my life, Anakin.  Maul was my apprentice, but you – if Jedi had sons, you would be mine.  I could not let you Fall by killing Ghûl in anger.”

A horrible shiver ran through Anakin.  “I was – that was me on the edge, wasn’t it?  I would have gone Dark, all the way, if I’d done that.”

Qui-Gon nodded.  “You must mind your fears, Anakin.  If you do not control them, they control you, and they drive you to terrible places and deeds.  If you are to have attachments – and I believe it is healthy for you to have them – then you must learn to master your fear.”

“I – I will, Master.”  Anakin swallowed hard.  “What should I do now?  How can I help you?  If Ghûl isn’t gone –”

Qui-Gon touched two fingers to his own temple.  “He is trying to regain control, even as we speak.  I do not think I will be able to hold him back much longer.”

“Then what can I do?  Can I help you fight him?”

“Anakin, there is no fight to be had here.”  Qui-Gon laid a hand on his shoulder.  “I have a minute left, perhaps two.  And then I will be truly and irrevocably _gone._   I will not be able to become one with the Force.  It will be as though Qui-Gon Jinn never existed.”

Anakin shook his head vigorously.  “No.  I don’t believe it.  There’s got to be _something_ we can do.”

Now Qui-Gon’s smile was sad, infinitely sad.  “There is, Anakin.  I am a Jedi.  I cannot commit suicide.  But I can ask you for one last service.”

It took a moment for Anakin’s mind, reeling from his use of the Dark Side and the shock of seeing Qui-Gon again, to connect the dots.  But he did, and he paled.  “No.  Master, you can’t ask me to –”

“Anakin,” Qui-Gon cut him off, his voice gentle.  “I have lived a good life.  Let me have a good death.  Let me die as myself, not as the twisted creature Plagueis has tried to make of me.  Deny him this victory.  Let me become one with the Force.”  He held up his lightsaber, and kept it there until Anakin took it with shaking hands.

“I am so very proud of you, Anakin,” he said.  “I need you to know that.  And I need you to know that, as poor as I have been about expressing it – I love you.  I was not exaggerating when I said you are my son.”

Anakin thumbed Qui-Gon’s lightsaber to life, unable to stop the tears streaming from his eyes.  “I love you too, Qui-Gon.  You are the father I never had, and a better Master than I deserved.”

Qui-Gon took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

“Goodbye, Anakin.”

Anakin stood there for a long moment, the rain hammering him.  The seconds ticked by as he struggled with himself, trying to summon the courage to do this last thing, this last service for Qui-Gon.

 _Master your fear,_ he thought.

“Goodbye, Qui-Gon,” he said, and swept the emerald blade through his Master’s chest.

Qui-Gon’s robe, suddenly empty, fell to the rain-slicked roof.  Anakin looked down at it, numb.  He let the lightsaber fall from his fingers.

He sank to his knees, gathered the robe in his hands, and wept.


	8. Aftermath

Dooku staggered onto the bridge of the _Invisible Hand_ as the ship shook under the assault of yet another light frigate ramming into it.  “Report!” he barked at the command droid.

“Sixty-seven percent of the fleet has been destroyed or compromised,” the boxy droid responded.  “I estimate an eighty-two percent probability that remaining in orbit will result in the destruction of all remaining ships.”

Grinding his teeth, Dooku stared helplessly at the sensor board, watching the icons of friendly ships wink out one by one.  They were doing this with nothing but commandos and a smattering of Jedi, he thought.  All it had taken was a ploy to cluster his fleet and distract them long enough for the enemy to get close.

He brought out his personal commlink.  “Vader!  Report.”

The reply was full of pain.  “I defeated their commander’s Jedi guard, but then –” A sharp gasp.  “He _shot_ me in the _back._ I needed to retreat.”

Dooku all but growled.  “Lord Plagueis will be most displeased with your failure, Vader.  Return to the _Invisible Hand_ at once.  We are withdrawing.”

“Understood,” Vader said, the shame audible in his voice.  “ETA three minutes.”

Dooku shut off his commlink.  “Once Vader is aboard, jump to lightspeed,” he ordered the command droid.  “Send that order to the rest of the fleet as well.”

“Very good, sir.”

Dooku turned to stare out the viewports, brooding on what excuses he would be able to offer Darth Plagueis.  As he looked down at Kamino, a sudden disturbance in the Force rippled out to him.

_Ghûl is dead._

With the disturbance came the certainty that the man had died as Qui-Gon, not Ghûl.  He had failed in his mission to turn Anakin.

He permitted himself a moment of sadness for the death of his former apprentice.  However things had played out, he _had_ cared for Qui-Gon.  Deep in his soul, Dooku felt a small measure of satisfaction, knowing that Qui-Gon had died as himself.  _I trained him well._

Then, drawing on decades of Jedi training, Dooku let Qui-Gon go.  He brushed his attachment away as he might an errant leaf resting on his cloak.

The battle was lost, but the war – _that_ had only just begun.

* * *

Ahsoka shook Maul by his shoulders, desperate.  “Master, wake up!  Please!”  Panic clouded her mind.  He couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t –

She was suddenly yanked to her feet, pulled away from her Master.  Anger flooding her, she opened her mouth to shout at whoever was daring to try to separate them, but the pressure disappeared and the Corellian, Captain Pellaeon, moved to kneel next to Maul.

He laid his ear to Maul’s chest, listening for a moment.  Then he straightened, balled his fists together, and began to pound violently against Maul’s breastbone.  Ahsoka stared, frozen by a mixture of shock and hope –

On the fifth blow, Maul jerked.  He sucked in a huge lungful of air before coughing violently, eyes snapping back open.

“Master!” Ahsoka cried, relief shuddering through her.  She looked at Pellaeon.  “How –”

“Extreme systemic trauma can trigger a shutdown of autonomous cardiac and respiratory functions,” Pellaeon replied.  “Do you know how hard it is to crack bridge transparisteel?”  He indicated the window Vader had punched Maul into, which sported a huge, jagged break in its pane.

Ahsoka pulled the man into a hug, not giving a damn about Jedi detachment or protocol.  “Thank you!  Thank you, Captain.”

He made an embarrassed sound before extricating himself from the embrace.  “No thanks necessary, Padawan.”  Turning to Maul, he asked, “Do you know where you are?  Who we are?”

Maul nodded.  “I remember everything.”  He looked at Ahsoka.  “You did well, Padawan.”

“Thank you, Master,” Ahsoka said.  “Can you walk?”

He shook his head.  “No.  I cannot feel my legs at all.  I suspect my spine is broken.”

Ahsoka gasped in horror.  _No, it can’t be._ “We can fix it, right?”

“The Kaminoans are medical geniuses, apparently,” Pellaeon told her, getting to his feet.  Ahsoka abruptly realized he was making room for a pair of clone medics who had just arrived with a diagnostic kit, medpack, and stretcher.  “If anyone can get him to walk again, it will be them.”

As Ahsoka watched the medics carefully check Maul’s injuries, the comm officer called out.  “Lord Admiral, we’ve intercepted an enemy transmission.  The Separatist fleet is preparing to retreat.”

“Very good, Lieutenant,” Thrawn said smoothly.  “Signal all commando teams: extract immediately, abort mission if necessary.  We’ve done what we needed to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

The medics carefully lifted Maul onto the stretcher.  “Commander,” one of them said, “care to accompany us down to medbay?”

Ahsoka looked at Pellaeon, who nodded briskly.  “The enemy is unlikely to attempt another assassination while in full retreat,” he said.  “Go.”

She followed the medics into the turbolift, one hand on Maul’s stretcher.  He _would_ walk again, she thought.  He _would._   She flatly refused to consider any other possibility.

As the turbolift whisked them down to medbay, Maul closed his eyes.  “Goodbye,” he murmured, seemingly to no one.

“Master?” Ahsoka said, panic rising again.  “Master, you’re going to be fine!”

He shook his head.  “I was not saying goodbye to you, Padawan.  My own Master has just died.”

Ahsoka stared.  “Master Qui-Gon?”

“He is one with the Force, now.”  Maul sighed.  “This is a dark day for the Jedi Order, victory or no.”

Looking at his twisted, broken body, Ahsoka couldn’t help but agree.

* * *

Venge came back to himself slowly and painfully.  The first thing he was aware of was the agony of his missing limb.

The second was a small, green hand, laid flat against his chest.

He looked down at Yoda, who stood on the pilot’s seat of the Neimoidian shuttle, eyes closed.  He could feel the Grandmaster’s Force signature enmeshed with his own, supporting him, cradling his life.

From behind where Venge sat in the co-pilot’s seat, Siri’s voice sounded, loud and excited.  “He’s awake!”

“Mmm,” Yoda said.  “Saved you, Siri did.  By cauterizing your wound, first.  By giving you her blood while in shock you were, second.”

Venge looked groggily down at his remaining arm, which had an IV line placed in it.  The tubing was red with Siri’s blood.  He could feel her pulse through the Force.  On the floor of the shuttle was a cannibalized first-aid kit.

“I lost quite a bit of blood to that spell, then?” he asked weakly.

“That’s an understatement,” Siri said.  “If I weren’t a human-universal donor, you would be dead right now.”

He winced.  “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

Her smile was audible in her reply.  “Until one or both of us dies, I will be bringing this up every chance I get.”

“Wonderful.”  Venge let his eyes drift closed again.  “Is the battle over?”

“Close, it is,” Yoda told him.  “Retreating, the enemy is.  Evacuated, our commandos have.  To destroy the rest of the droids in the city, it remains still.”

“I assume, however, the outcome is not in doubt.”

“Not in doubt,” Yoda echoed, and there was no mistaking the grim pride in his voice.  “Still being calculated, our losses are, but barely in the thousands do they number.  The enemy’s –”  He stopped.

Venge could feel why.  A familiar presence had entered the shuttle.  A moment later, Padmé Amidala stepped into the cockpit.  “Venge!”

He forced his eyes back open so he could look at her.  Trying a smile, he said, “Padmé.”

She knelt next to his seat, placing her hands on his remaining one.  “You look terrible,” she murmured.

For _her_ part, she was covered in blood, droid lubricant, smoke, and dust.  “You look fairly rough yourself,” Venge replied with a weak laugh.  “How was combat with the _Mando_ corps?”

Her fierce pride flashed through the Force like a gust of autumn wind.  “Let’s just say that Kal – Sergeant Skirata – owes me a drink.”

“I look forward to hearing that story.”  Venge took hold of her hand, clutching it tightly and bringing it to his lips to kiss.  “Promise me something.”

Padmé nodded.  “Of course, Venge.  What is it?”

Using the last of his strength, Venge sat up in the chair so he could whisper in her ear.

“When you take me to the medcenter,” he said, “make them give me the _good_ drugs.”

* * *

Dormé found him, hours after the last droid was disposed of, on the roof.

Anakin was sitting, head down, looking like he must be half-frozen, a brown robe clutched in his hands.  He didn’t look up when she approached, or react when she laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Anakin,” she said.  “It’s Dormé.  Can you hear me?”

He nodded, just barely.

“Come inside,” she told him gently.  “You’re going to freeze if you stay out here.”

He shook his head.  “Don’t want to.”

With a small sigh, Dormé planted herself next to him.  “Then I’m sitting too.  I’ve been on my feet carrying a cip-quad for eleven hours.”  When that statement elicited no reaction, she added, “We won, you know.  The Battle of Kamino was a decisive victory for the Order.”

Now Anakin looked at her with hollow eyes.  “My Master, my _father,_ died today, Dormé.  And I killed him.  That’s not victory.”

She reached out to touch his balled fist.  “He wasn’t himself any more, Ani.”

“No.  He was.  At the end, he fought Ghûl off so he could see me one more time.”  Anakin took a deep, shuddering breath; then everything spilled out of him at once, in a long, terrible rush of pain and tears.  “I killed him so he could die as himself and become one with the Force.  I know it was the right thing to do, he _asked_ me to do it, but he was my Master and I _killed_ him, Dormé, I killed him with his own lightsaber –”

Dormé let him collapse against her and sob his grief and guilt into her chest.  She wrapped her arms around him and just held him, listening, only speaking to contradict him when he called himself worthless, or a traitor, or a failure.  She had no skill with the Force, but she could picture all of his discrete strands of pain, coiled and tangled together into a solid, aching mass in his heart.  He would need a supportive ear, and many kind words, before he could start to heal.

For now, though, she merely waited until he ran out of words before she said, “All right, Ani.  I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying with you.  But let’s go inside for now.”

He nodded mutely.  He let her help him to his feet.  Together they set off toward the speeder Dormé had taken up here.

“I’m sorry,” Anakin murmured into her neck as she got them settled into the speeder.  “You’re soaked because of me.”

Dormé laughed softly, kicking the speeder’s drive to life.  “I’ll survive, Anakin.  We both will.  That’s all we can do at times like this.”

She took him back inside, saw him to his quarters, made him shower and change and fall into bed.  As she stepped out, finally, she very nearly bumped into Shmi.  The older woman was standing outside with a large luggage repulsorcart, looking as though she were about to knock.

“Dormé!” she said, her face lighting up before darkening with a frown.  “You’re _soaked._ ”

“I noticed,” Dormé replied dryly.  “When did you arrive?”

“Less than an hour ago.  I’m told Separatist forces withdrew just in time for my ship to avoid a fight.”  She cast her gaze past Dormé into Anakin’s quarters.  “How –”

“Not well,” Dormé replied.  “He’s had a very long, very trying day.”

“I see.”  Shmi nodded slowly, her expression drawn.  “What about Qui-Gon?  Can I see him?”

Dormé looked down at her feet, suddenly feeling indescribably weary.

“He passed away earlier today,” she said, unable to meet Shmi’s gaze.

There was a long, terribly silent moment.  Dormé heard Shmi shift slightly.  “I see,” she murmured.  “Thank you for telling me.”  Another pause.  “I recognize that this is a difficult time for us all, and I appreciate that you have been here for Ani today,” she continued.  “So I hope you’ll forgive my selfishness when I ask that I be given some time alone with my son, now.”

Dormé nodded mechanically.  “Of course.”  She stepped aside.

“Thank you, dear,” Shmi said, opening the door.

It was only after Shmi was gone that Dormé let herself sink quietly to the floor, back pressed against the wall, and begin to weep her own bitter, hot tears.

_Damn you for this, Qui-Gon,_ she thought.  _Damn you for so deeply hurting Anakin._

* * *

There was no body to burn.  Anakin flatly refused to let anyone hold a funeral, and Maul supported him.  In the end, Qui-Gon’s name was read at the combined funeral for the two thousand, three hundred and fifty-eight men who had died in the conflict.  His name echoed through the vast convocation hall, along with the names of a bevy of clone pilots, a few commandos, and one other Jedi who had died bringing down a battleship.

Yoda Knighted Anakin the next day, every surviving member of the original Conspiracy in attendance, as well as Ahsoka and Shmi.  The Grandmaster ruled that by overcoming Ghûl and finding the courage to help Qui-Gon to the Force, Anakin had passed his Trials.  He sheared the braid from Anakin’s head with his shoto, and the tiny locks of hair fell to the floor with unusual weight.

Venge decided on a prosthetic arm, one specially tooled from a phrik alloy.  It would not be ready for some time yet, but he began undergoing the surgeries necessary to prepare his shoulder for the grafting.

Maul, his spine completely severed, elected to undergo an experimental procedure to implant cybernetic control circuity in his lower body and brain to allow him to regain full mobility.

Siri, half her hair burned away by Dooku’s Sith lightning and unsure if it would grow back, shaved her head.

Padmé and Dormé had emerged relatively unscathed from the Battle of Kamino, but they were immediately thrown back into the business of diplomacy with little time for rest.

So it was that when Yoda called the six of them up to his chambers, two days after the battle, they were a motley crew indeed as they gathered outside the door: Venge, still minus an arm, Maul in a hoverchair, Siri looking like a fresh army recruit, Anakin somber and wearing Qui-Gon’s robe and lightsaber.  Only Padmé and Dormé looked anything like themselves.

The door opened to admit them, and they all stared in surprise and horror at the scene within.

* * *

Venge felt his stomach drop straight into his boots.  His heart did just the opposite, leaping into his throat.

Yoda and Darth Sidious sat on meditation cushions in the Grandmaster’s chambers, drinking tea together.

Sidious was in his full Chancellor Palpatine guise, wearing voluminous, violet robes of state rather than a Sith cloak.  Still, there was no mistaking the cruel pleasure flickering through his eyes as he took in the group’s disheveled state before resting his gaze on Venge.

“My,” he drawled.  “Don’t we all look discouraged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone was curious, Padmé's final count was 203, Skirata's 191.


	9. Devil's Bargain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: I pull no punches about emphasizing that Sidious is an abuser in his relationship to Venge. It's a very hurtful and unhealthy dynamic between the two of them, though there are zero sexual components to it. I hope this won't keep anyone from enjoying the chapter, but I am putting a warning on it to be safe.

Venge felt Yoda’s power flare as the Grandmaster kept Anakin from launching himself at Sidious.  “Calm, you must be,” Yoda said gently.  “Under a flag of truce has he come.  To all of you I would have him speak.”

“He’s a kriffing _Sith!_ ” Anakin roared.  “You know what they did to Qui-Gon!”

For his part, Venge couldn’t move.  He felt frozen by those eyes, so familiar, fixed on his own.

“It is because of Master Qui-Gon that I am here,” Sidious said.  “Or, rather, because of what Plagueis had done to him.”

“We can’t trust him!” Siri snapped.  “Master Yoda –”

Venge felt the Force shiver as Yoda _unfurled,_ opening his true self and strength to the world around him.  It was like a pure white pillar of flame, emanations of power and majesty and Light rippling out.  He felt sick; Sidious looked it, too.

“For almost eight hundred years have I guided this Order,” Yoda said, his voice quiet and deliberate.  “Corrupted, I am not, and never will I be.  Trying, dangerous times are these.  If together we cannot stand, divided, will we perish.  Now: trust me, do you?”  He looked hard at each of them in turn until he received a nod.  “Then sit.  Talk, Sidious will.  Listen, _you_ will.”  He jabbed a small, green finger at the meditation cushions scattered throughout the room.  “And quiet, you will also be.”

Only after they had all seated themselves did Yoda withdraw back into himself, becoming once more the bottomless pool of calm.  “Speak, Darth Sidious,” he said.  “Of why you are here.”

Sidious gave each of them a serpent’s smile before he began.  “Much like Darth – pardon, _Justicar_ Venge there, I am here because it suits me.  I care for my own survival and power first and foremost.  I am here because, much as I loathe it, the Jedi Order is the only force in the galaxy capable of stopping my Master.”

“You want us to kill him so you can take his place?” Anakin growled.  “Fat chance.”

“Anakin, my boy, this goes far beyond Jedi and Sith,” Sidious said.  “Think on this: I am here to test whether I am still _capable of betraying him._ ”

“Qui-Gon told me Plagueis killed him and made changes to his brain before bringing him back, over and over.”  Anakin glared at Sidious.  “I think you’d remember that if he did it to you.”

Sidious took a long, pointed sip of tea.  He put the cup back down in the precise center of its coaster, regarded it, reoriented it slightly.

“Would I?” he asked.

Nobody said anything for a strained, awful moment as the full ramifications of his question sank in.

“ _Justicar_ Venge,” the Sith Lord said a second later.  “Bring out your commlink.  Check the integrity of the blackmail web you’ve fashioned.”

Swallowing, Venge did so, telling himself he was doing this because it was necessary, not because Sidious had ordered it.  He tapped in the necessary commands, and stared in abject shock at the numbers which scrolled by in reply on the unit’s small display.

“How is thirty-eight percent of it _gone?_ ” he growled.  “I protected it –”

“Against all the methods you knew _we_ could deploy.  But this damage?  It was done by none other than the vaunted Jedi Council.”

Yoda nodded grimly.  “A geas has Plagueis placed upon them.  Remove it, I will, when they arrive.  But –”

“If he’s capable of using that kind of mind influence on Jedi Masters,” Siri said, “then there’s nobody – except you, Master Yoda – that he can’t control.”

“Mmm.”  Yoda sipped more of his own tea.  “Fight Plagueis will I, when time it is.  But to that time must we make it alive, all of us.”

“You’ve met Vader by now,” Sidious said with a sneer.  “He is Plagueis’s creature through and through.  Dooku as well, now.  It is only because I am here, having this conversation, that I retain any hope of being yet free of his influence.”

“Are you, though?” Maul asked quietly from his hoverchair.  “He could have meant for you to be here, thinking yourself free of his control.”

“I leave that disturbing possibility for my former apprentice to debunk as best he can,” Sidious replied smoothly.  He looked again into Venge’s eyes, smiling sardonically.  “My defenses are down, _Justicar._   Read me.  Tell us if I am still the same monster who trained you.”

Padmé, who had been silent until now, all but growled.  “I don’t think so.”

“Ambassador, I think it Venge’s decision to make, not yours,” Sidious said.  “Unless you are his keeper now.”

“You are his _abuser,_ ” Padmé hissed.  “And you’re looking for a chance to put him back in that place, to reestablish a harmful dynamic.  I should kill you right here, you –”

“Padmé,” Venge said, putting his hand on her knee.  She stopped, looked at him.  “I appreciate what you’re trying to do.  But he’s right.  This is the best way to determine if he’s been… altered.”

“I don’t like it,” she said flatly.

“Neither do I.  But I can handle it.  Thank you.”  Venge turned back to Sidious.  “Let’s be clear,” he said.  “If you try anything, Padmé _will_ kill you.  Everyone else here will help.  Flag of truce or not.”

“I’d expect nothing less,” Sidious replied.  “Go on, then.  We’re waiting.”

Venge bared his teeth in a snarl.  Sidious had said that during his Sith training, every time Venge had hesitated to act out of fear or what little moral compunction he had once possessed.  _Go on, then.  We’re waiting._

He took a deep breath, then dove into Sidious’s mind.

Red blood, hot, welling up in his throat.  The vise of the Dark Side around his neck.  _Die, Father, die._   Power and murder and dark, glittering majesty.  His sisters’ screams were the worst, quickening his blood in a gross, incestuous way.  Cold, and sharp rocks, and cutting wind.  _Make the old wretch watch me butcher his wives and his calves, then burn him alive and laugh as he screams._   His Queen, his doll, saying the words he had placed in her mouth.  How he had stared at that graceful, pale neck in the aftermath of Naboo, and imagined wrapping his hands around it and _squeezing_ –

Venge came out of his seat with a pained scream and smashed Sidious across the face with his one remaining hand.  He was horrified to feel tears in his eyes.

“It’s him,” he said hoarsely as Sidious grinned up at him, blood oozing from where Venge’s blow had split his cheek open.  “There’s no trace of Plagueis.”

“How relieving,” Sidious said.  “You still have your anger.”

“Ambassador,” Yoda warned as Padmé rose partway to her feet.  “Enough, that is, Darth Sidious.”

Venge sank back onto his cushion, furious that he was trembling.  He accepted Padmé’s grip as she entwined her fingers with his.

“Here is what I propose,” Sidious said, addressing himself to Yoda.  “Venge releases all the blackmail he has incriminating Plagueis.  He destroys the information incriminating _me,_ so my fellow Sith cannot obtain it and use it against me – which they surely would, their own secrets already being out.  When the Senate ousts Chancellor Damask and confirms me as the sole leader of the Republic, I announce my support of the Jedi and the clone army.  We establish an official diplomatic and wartime alliance.”  He gestured around them.  “The Jedi may have lost individual battles to might of arms, but in all of history you have never lost a war to it.  Eventually, with Republic backing, you will defeat Plagueis and his apprentices.”

“At which point we just shake hands and let you rule the Republic?” Anakin scoffed.

“At which point we return to attempting to destroy one another,” Sidious snapped.  “Make no mistake, Anakin.  I _will_ see the Jedi Order and all other worshipers of Ashla wiped from the galaxy.  But unless we take steps to oppose Plagueis, drastic ones, we will all die or end up forever bound to his will.  Do you want that?”  He smiled.  “Don’t you want vengeance for Qui-Gon?”

“Snake,” Dormé spat before Anakin could respond.  “How dare you use –”

“Please,” Yoda interjected.  “Speak, may I?”  He waited until Dormé gave him a nod.  “Agree to this plan I will,” he continued, “if those gathered here will, as well as the rest of the Council when they arrive.  But on one additional condition.”  He looked around the room, receiving reluctant signs of affirmation from everyone except Venge.

“What’s the condition?” Venge asked.  “He’s asking a lot.  We’d best gain a comparable amount.”

Yoda stared hard at Sidious.  “Tell us, you will, how to destroy the Jedi you would use the clones.”

Sidious loosed an elaborate and disgusted sigh.  “It costs me nothing to do so, considering that you’ve already blunted that particular knife.  Are you familiar with the army’s contingency orders?”

“Ah,” Yoda said.  “One for renegade Jedi, is there?”

“Order Sixty-Six,” Sidious confirmed.  “The plan was to reveal myself – and, I assume, Plagueis – to one of you, most likely Anakin.  You would naturally then attempt to arrest us, in effect trying for a coup.”

“And in your capacity as Chancellor, you would brand us traitors and command our own men to murder us.”  Maul’s voice carried a note of what could almost be admiration.  “You are confident they would obey?”

“Good soldiers follow orders,” the Sith Lord said with a leer.  “And we commissioned very good soldiers indeed.”

Yoda looked back to Venge.  “Your thoughts?”

“This is _not_ a good plan,” Venge replied darkly.  “But it’s also the only one that I think might work.”  He took a deep breath.  “I’ll honor this agreement.  You should leave immediately for Coruscant.  You need to be in position, ready to take the reins when I burn Plagueis.”

“Indeed.”  Sidious rose to his feet.  “Well, then.  I shall be in contact.”

“Just remember one thing,” Padmé spoke up.  “I _will_ have your blood, Palpatine.  For all of our people you killed with the invasion of Naboo.”  She narrowed her eyes.  “I was a pacifist, an idealist, once.  No more.  Because of _you._   You brought this upon yourself.  Now, get out.”

Sidious’s smile told Venge exactly what he thought of the threat, but the man gave a deep bow.  “Ambassador.”

And he was gone.

“We’re dirtying ourselves allying with him,” Anakin said.  “By the end, we’ll regret this.”

Yoda nodded gravely.  “Speak the truth you do, my young Jedi.  But through the mud does our path go.”

His thoughts elsewhere, Venge was brought back by a squeeze of Padmé’s hand.  “Are you all right?” she asked.

The Force spoke to him, then.  “I will be,” Venge said.  “Excuse me.”

He hurried out.

* * *

Sidious was about to board his ship when Venge caught up with him.  “Wait,” Venge said.  “I would have words with you.”

Sidious turned, the rain vanishing into puffs of steam as it fell toward him.  His skin and clothes were bone-dry, still.  “Would you?” he asked.  “What more is there to be said, _Justicar?_ ”

Venge reached into his cloak and brought out his one remaining lightsaber, the Sith design he had made under Sidious’s tutelage.  He saw his old Master tense, then relax as Venge tossed the lifeless black hilt to him.  The Chancellor snatched it out of the air, considered it as he held it in his skeletal grip.

“I will never be ‘Kenobi,’” Venge said.  “It means less than nothing to me.  Vengeance is who I am, _what_ I am.  You made me that way.  So take heed, Darth Sidious.  As Padmé said, there _will_ be a reckoning.”

He turned and walked back inside, leaving Sidious alone in the rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy the twisty ending to The Battle of Kamino! Our next Venge story, "Justicar Venge," will be beginning in a few days. I hope to see you there!


End file.
